


If You Could Only See

by CeiphiedKnight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6547342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeiphiedKnight/pseuds/CeiphiedKnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you could only see the way she loves me, then maybe you would understand<br/>Why I feel this way about our love, and what I must do<br/>If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says...</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Could Only See

Adrien was frowning at his father, which wasn’t an unusual state for his face to be in, but this time he was accompanied by his very embarrassed girlfriend. Marinette being the target of his father’s anger was unacceptable to the blonde teenager, so he grabbed her hand in solidarity as she stared at her shoes with a flushed face.

Looking up at him with wide cerulean eyes, Marinette’s abashed expression gave Adrien the strength he needed to stand up to his father regarding this subject.

“I’m seventeen,” Adrien explained, his voice low. There was a bit of danger laced within the velvety tone, and his father noticed it.

Gabriel Agreste watched as his son stood perfectly straight, having pulled himself up to his full height, and locked eyes with him. Adrien’s only physical movement was when he reached down to hold the girl’s hand.

_Marinette Dupain-Cheng._

Gabriel knew of her, of course. Adrien had mentioned his classmate in passing, plus she had won Gabriel’s own design contest two years prior. There were other reasons, other suspicions, which had caused him to follow the girl more than he would any of Adrien’s other school friends.

The girl had even designed an album cover for Jagged Stone, and had continued a professional relationship with the rock idol since that time.

However, though she was certainly impressive in those accomplishments, it was absolutely unacceptable that Gabriel’s assistant had gone into Adrien’s room just an hour ago to wake him for school, and found the girl in Adrien’s bed. 

Nathalie hadn’t even woken the sleeping teenagers. Instead, she had immediately called for Gabriel’s assistance.

Gabriel had found them just as Nathalie had. Fast asleep, with the Dupain-Cheng girl using his son’s chest as a pillow.

He had not been pleased.

Some shouting from both of the teenagers upon being woken by the family patriarch, a few tears from the Dupain-Cheng girl, and now here they all were, in Gabriel’s office.

“I’m well aware of your age,” Gabriel said, his tone flat.

“Are you sure about that?” Adrien said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m surprised you even remember my birthday.”

Gabriel ignored that jab and shifted his attention to Marinette.

“Young lady,” he said, very formally. “My son has responsibilities that you couldn’t possibly understand. What he dabbles in, and who he dabbles with, is not my concern. My concern is that he maintains the professional appearance that I have spent years of my life perfecting. He is the face of my company, which means he must stay unobtainable. He must stay mysterious. This means he cannot be seen walking to school with a girl who obviously slept here, because she’s still wearing her clothes from yesterday.”

Adrien looked down at Marinette, and her pink cheeks had flushed even darker in shame. She wouldn’t meet his father’s eyes.

Adrien had never been more livid.

“Don’t you dare talk to her like that,” he said, his voice taking a dark tone that neither Marinette nor his father had ever heard before. “Don’t you dare speak to my girlfriend as if she’s some kind of dalliance. I LOVE HER!”

At that, Marinette’s head whipped up. She looked at Adrien, who had never released her hand. Blue eyes met green, and all the nerves and shame in the world didn’t mean a damn anymore.

“Mr. Agreste,” Marinette said, her voice soft at first but steadily growing stronger. “I love your son. I would never purposefully do anything to ruin his image. We were working on a school project last night…it got late, and we both got tired, and we just fell asleep. I swear that’s all it was.”

Gabriel considered her, very carefully, while collecting his thoughts.

“It doesn’t matter what did or did not happen. It’s not lost of me that Adrien is a desirable boy, after all. What matters is that we stop a scandal in its tracks. I don’t care if he brings home a dozen girls, as long as _no one knows about it._ ”

Adrien had bristled again. “What do you take me for?” he ground out between gritted teeth. “I’m not some…some…”

“Promiscuous teenager?” Nathalie called from the doorway, unhelpfully.

“Right,” Adrien said, not even looking at the assistant. “It’s only Mari, and it’s only ever going to be Mari.”

Inexplicably, Gabriel’s frown deepened and Marinette’s face got redder.

Adrien slowly let go of Marinette’s hand and stepped closer to his father. He was eye-to-eye with the older man when he said, “You want me to be aloof and mysterious? Fine. Then watch me.”

With that, he turned back to Marinette, took her hand again, and led them both out of the office and out of the Agreste mansion.

Once they were free of the sterile manor, Marinette felt as if she could breathe again.

As they walked together to the gate, she finally let the tears fall.

“I’m so sorry, Adrien,” she said. “If I hadn’t wanted to stay out late last night to watch that stupid fashion show at the Eiffel Tower, then we wouldn’t have run into that purse snatcher, and then we wouldn’t have been so tired when we got back to your house…”

“Marinette,” Adrien said, pausing his girlfriend’s guilty rambling.

She sniffled and stopped walking, looking up at him.

He’d grown quite a lot since they first started running around the city as Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Placing both his hands on her shoulders, Adrien continued, “I loved the fashion show. I loved beating up that purse snatcher. Well…not because of the violence…but you know what I mean! I love being with you, no matter what we’re doing.”

Through her watery eyes and sniffly nose, Marinette finally managed a smile.

“So you’re not mad?” she asked, taking his hand again as he led them through the gate.

“Not at you,” Adrien replied, his eyes getting that defiant look that she’d come to associate more with Chat Noir.

“Your father means well…” Marinette began, but stopped herself. There was little she could say to convince Adrien that his father wasn’t abusive and horrible. 

Because, the truth is, he kind of was.

They arrived outside of the Dupain-Cheng’s bakery and walked inside, causing the little bell above the door to jingle. They were already late for school, and Marinette hadn’t been home yet.

“Marinette!” Sabine Cheng yelled, running to her daughter and causing the short line of customers to stare.

She wrapped her arms around the teenager, causing Marinette to finally break physical contact with Adrien because her mom was squeezing the life out of her, and Marinette was unsuccessfully trying to dislodge her.

“Mama,” Marinette gasped. “I’m so sorry. Adrien and I were working on a project for school last night and we both just fell asleep.”

Sabine finally pulled back and gave Adrien a good-natured smile.

“I figured it was something like that,” she said. “Go upstairs and get changed, and I’ll let your father know you’re home safe.”

With a grateful nod, Marinette pulled Adrien through the bakery and to the back entrance of their home.

Once safely deposited in Marinette’s room, the two let out a collective breath that they didn’t know they’d been holding since leaving Adrien’s house.

Suddenly, Marinette found herself squished into her boyfriend’s chest. He had his arms wrapped completely around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and his cheek rested upon the top of her head.

“Um…Adrien,” Marinette mumbled into his shirt. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Everything is fine now.”

******

Adrien never went back to his father’s home. There was nothing there he cared about anyway. Everything he cared about…everything that was currently worth a damn, anyway, was a girl with blue-black hair pressed up against his side, and an annoying cat thing eating camembert in his school bag.

The only person Adrien would speak with regarding his schedule was Nathalie, and Gabriel knew better than to push. Because to push back would be to push his son even further away.

Months later, the day after Adrien’s eighteenth birthday, Gabriel was surprised to receive a letter from his estranged son.

When Gabriel unfolded the letter, a photo fell out. Stooping over to pick up the wallet-sized image, he gasped when he saw that it was a studio shot of his son with Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The girl (woman, now) was standing a bit behind Adrien, with her left hand draped casually over his shoulder.

There was no mistaking the diamond that glittered from her ring finger.

Gabriel was incensed.

Even worse, he knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Already angry, he flattened out the letter and saw that it was incredibly short.

_If you could only see the way she loves me, then maybe you would understand_  
_Why I feel this way about our love, and what I must do_  
_If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says_  
_When she says she loves me._

Gabriel ripped his glasses off his face and blinked back tears.

The letter hadn’t even been signed.

******

Akuma events were getting out of hand.

“Papillon is either getting angrier by the day, or he’s bored,” Chat Noir commented after one particularly difficult battle.

Ladybug gave him a lopsided smile and said, “You’ll forgive me if I hope it’s the latter.”

At dusk, the heroes of Paris found an abandoned alley in which to detransform, and continued the journey to their small apartment, hand-in-hand.

Adrien ran his thumb over the ring he had presented to Marinette on her birthday, and which hadn’t left her finger since.

At his soft touch, Marinette smiled up at him, and he would swear that the Paris sunset was nothing compared to the beauty of her eyes when she was happy.

And, according to her, she was happy because of him.

In that moment, he decided that his greatest accomplishment in life had been making the most amazing girl in the entire world happy.

That is, until little Emma came along.

**The end.**

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fluffiest thing I have ever written, in a lifetime of angst and character death.
> 
> This show has done things to me.
> 
> Characters aren't mine, song is by Tonic. I love being able to work some of my hot 90s jams into my fandoms. I heard this on the radio today and the thing about her blue eyes really struck me...and then I did some research on why the song was written. Long story short, he had a girlfriend that his parents didn't approve of. Sounds familiar!
> 
> I meant to make this story about both of them, but it ended up being more about my precious golden dew drop and his case of sads. 
> 
> And if anyone thinks Sabine was a little too easy-going about that "whoops we just fell asleep" excuse, I'll have you know that this excuse always worked on my mom when I was their age!


End file.
